As pinch-me moments go, arriving on a secluded island in the South Pacific was utterly mesmerising.
With its swaying palms and white sand glittering beneath a dazzling sun, I waded into the warm, tropical waters, completely overwhelmed by the beauty of my surroundings.
As brightly coloured fish darted past my feet, I couldn’t help but imagine what it must be like to actually own an exotic island. After all, that’s exactly why I was here, to view it just as you would a house, not for myself but for one of my mega-rich clients.
Welcome to my life as a personal gift shopper to Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) individuals, where I’m paid huge sums – sometimes six figures – to make their every whim a reality.
It was 2018 and a billionaire entrepreneur challenged me to find him an exotic retreat to buy as a gift for his wife and kids. A holiday home like no other.
Having signed a non-disclosure agreement, all I can say is that, although buying an island sounds like the ultimate extravagance, this one was just over £100,000.
Its bargain price reflected the lack of infrastructure or even a sewer system. But when you have unlimited wealth, you can simply buy those, too.
Some of my clients don’t blink at spending £100,000 on a Tuesday afternoon, rather like the rest of us nipping out of the office to pick up a Pret sandwich.
A personal gift shopper to Ultra-High-Net-Worth (UHNW) individuals, Katrina Aleksa earns huge sums – sometimes six figures – to make their every whim a reality
Take the chap who hired me to the tune of many thousands of pounds (plus business-class flights to Cape Town) to source a rare pink diamond which would then be set in a ring as a 30th wedding anniversary gift for his wife.
It may have seemed like mission impossible at the outset but, after six weeks of contacting dealers and merchants, I sat in the private viewing room at an exclusive merchant in South Africa and knew I’d nailed it.
I gasped as I was presented with a rare £60,000, 3.8-carat pink diamond propped up on a black velvet pillow.
He later told me his wife had been speechless when she’d opened it – no mean feat for someone who’s seen, and worn, some of the finest jewellery in the world.
Failure was never an option, though. My clients exist in a world where money talks and they’re used to getting exactly what they want, when they want it.
Of course, due to my contractual obligations, I cannot name the high-profile men and women who pay from £350 an hour for my services, but I can reveal that they range from entrepreneurs and CEOs to rock legends, royalty and movie stars. This means their demands can often be unrealistically stressful.
I’m frequently reminded of the scene from The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep’s character, ball-breaking magazine editor Miranda, orders Anne Hathaway’s character, trainee Andy, to get her hands on the next unpublished Harry Potter manuscript for her kids.
Katrina was sent to South Africa by a wealthy man to source a rare pink diamond which would then be set in a ring as a 30th wedding anniversary gift for his wife
While I’ve never had anything quite as outlandish as that, one global movie star asked me to track down a vintage bottle of Jean Patou 1000 perfume, despite it being discontinued more than 20 years ago.
‘I expect it to be couriered to my villa in Italy within 48 hours,’ she told me, insisting that it was the only fragrance that would match the mood of the villa’s opulent interiors, which were all aged oak, rich velvet furnishings and ceiling-to-floor silk drapes.
I swallowed my nerves and, after 36 hours and two sleepless nights of non-stop calls to vintage collectors, high-end resellers and one niche Parisian auction house, I located a sealed bottle in a private archive in Zurich.
When it arrived, the client burst into tears and said it smelled like her beloved grandmother, which was the memory she was trying to recreate for her house guests that summer.
On another occasion, the wife of a famous sports star asked me to source some very specific blush-toned roses for decorative centrepieces at an important dinner party she was hosting for 30.
My brief was that they could be ‘nothing too pale, too pink or too peach’ – in fact, only huge bundles of pink O’Hara garden roses would do. When I explained that variety was out of season in the UK and Europe, she ordered me to scour the rest of the world instead.
Cue a mad panic to import some from a grower in Colombia overnight costing thousands of pounds, with the last-minute addition of some incredibly rare, delicate Miyabi Wabara roses on the same flight.
Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Katrina sometimes finds herself in similar situations to a scene in the film, in which Hathaway’s character, Andy, had to get her hands on the next unpublished Harry Potter manuscript for her demanding boss, Miranda (Streep)
I was frantically watching the clock, worried that the flight wouldn’t land before the dinner party. They arrived just in the nick of time – only for the client to postpone the whole event, with no recognition of the effort I’d put in and the sleep I’d lost.
The expense was irrelevant to her. What’s £20,000 when you’re worth millions? I just smile politely, do as I’m told and put in my invoice.
So, how did I find myself being paid handsomely to spend other people’s fortunes?
Having studied art business and curation at Sotheby’s many years ago, I’d worked as an art adviser, curator and investor for 12 years, an experience that naturally evolved into helping clients source rare, meaningful and often investment-worthy gifts.
My clients would contact me to find rare works by the likes of Picasso, Miro, Chagall and Matisse for their private collections. Then, six years ago, one of them said to me: ‘My wife’s birthday’s coming up, I don’t suppose you can help find a gift for her?’
Thinking it sounded fun, I accepted the challenge to find a rare Hermes bag costing six figures.
After that, other multi-millionaires and billionaires began to inquire about my gift services. As you can imagine, there’s no such thing as being off-duty in this job. Clients expect access and answers on demand.
Now I’m 37 and divorced from my investor husband, with whom I have two boys aged four and two, I have a wonderful full-time nanny who’s very much part of our family and makes the juggle possible.
I’ve been known to take calls from clients with new commissions while I’m in the bath, on the school run or mid-manicure and have to draft her in to help.
Clients are not always divas or eccentric personalities, as people might assume, though.
Unable to find a particular vintage wine for a client, Katrina instead hired the vineyard, where the client and his wife had their first date, and recreated the event, right down to the finest details – the price tag was £98,000
Often, they’re just individuals operating in a financial realm most of us can’t quite relate to. They’re used to having access to everything, so the challenge becomes finding something they can’t easily buy themselves. My job is to bring the surprise factor, plus sentiment and exclusivity.
Another early commission was from a client who needed a gift for the host of a party he’d been invited to. A bottle of wine, exquisite chocolates or flowers were not going to cut it.
Top of his shopping list was a ceramic Picasso plate – a collector’s item costing around £12,000 from a private art dealer in my personal contacts book.
These are individuals who don’t want to walk into Harrods and buy something off the shelf, even if that’s a handbag costing more than the average salary or the most expensive bottle of champagne.
You may wonder what the psychology is behind this. In a nutshell, they don’t want a present – they want a story. Owning or giving something utterly unique reflects their identity, their taste and the thought that’s gone into the moment.
It becomes a conversation piece, a memory marker. In a world where so much is mass-produced, there’s real power in saying: ‘This was made or chosen just for you.’ That sense of exclusivity makes people feel special, and that’s what true luxury really is.
A global movie star tasked Katrina with finding a vintage bottle of Jean Patou 1000 perfume that hadn’t been made in more than 20 years ago. She tracked one down and her client burst into tears as it reminded her of her beloved grandmother
You may imagine that UHNW people want to flaunt and flash their wealth the way footballers’ wives often do, competing with their peers to show off their riches.
But most of my clients expect complete discretion and don’t want unwanted attention, as much for security reasons as anything else.
My toxic trait is saying ‘yes’ to any request, then figuring out how on earth I’m going to fulfil it afterwards. And if I can’t source the exact gift, I’m creative at coming up with alternatives.
Take the client who wanted me to find a very specific vintage bottle of wine from a boutique, family-owned vineyard in Burgundy as a present for his wife on their silver wedding anniversary.
It was the wine they’d shared on their first date at the vineyard decades earlier.
Despite contacting my exclusive network of private wine collectors, auction houses and specialist merchants who deal in rare and discontinued vintages, the bottle no longer existed due to its age and the fact that production had long since ceased.
Had it still been in circulation, it would have been valued at £22,000.
Not wishing to disappoint my client, I suggested that we could hire the vineyard privately and recreate their first date, right down to the finest details – an idea he loved, even though the price tag was £98,000.
Weeks in the making, I arranged for them to eat their favourite meal prepared by a Michelin-starred chef.
The vineyard’s owner, now in his late 80s, hosted them, toasting their love with a hand-selected wine pairing from a similar vintage to the one they’d enjoyed almost 30 years earlier.
The pressures can be immense as I’m dealing with people who aren’t used to being told no. I have one repeat client who decided 48 hours before his wife’s milestone birthday that he was going to surprise her with a private performance by her favourite classical musician at their home in Surrey.
‘I don’t care how you do it, just make it happen by Friday,’ was the text I received from him when he was mid-flight to Geneva.
Incredibly, the artist was available but I didn’t sleep for two days while I arranged for sound engineers, lighting designers and backing musicians to fly in from around Europe.
Fortunately, I haven’t had anything catastrophic happen in my quest to fulfil a client’s brief, but there’s been the occasional near-miss.
The closest I came to disaster was when I almost mixed up the ring sizes for a client’s wife and his mistress – he was buying one for each of them. Let’s just say my spreadsheet had to get much tighter after that.
As for the difference in gifts: wives tend to receive timeless, heirloom pieces, things with sentiment and long-term value.
Mistresses? It’s often about impact. Think flashier, more playful and occasionally a little more risqué. Both come with their own level of pressure, but the goal is always the same: make it unforgettable.
Last Valentine’s Day, one client asked for ten bunches of beautiful flowers each to go to his wife and numerous mistresses. He spent £3,500 on each lady, and that was just the cost of the roses (nobody has ten vases so I arranged those, too). But I’m not here to judge. My job is to make sure everyone receiving a gift feels loved.
Last Valentine’s Day, one client asked for ten bunches of beautiful flowers each to go to his wife and numerous mistresses. He spent £3,500 on each lady, and that was just the cost of the roses
Such gifts may sound vulgar and ostentatious, especially at a time when lots of ordinary people are struggling. But many clients are philanthropists and I think it’s admirable they want to share their wealth and treat people.
One heartwarming job was for a client who asked me to find a quintessentially English house for his Asian mother as an escape from her busy life overseas.
After extensive research, we honed in on the Cotswolds, renowned for its tranquil villages and picturesque countryside, and he paid £870,000 for a beautiful cottage for her as a surprise.
Another client’s brother had broken his leg, so I was tasked with cheering him up with something unique and uplifting.
It transpired his brother was quite the film buff so I used my contacts to get a personalised ‘get well soon’ video message from his favourite superstar actor.
To secure big-name talent usually involves going through their agent or manager. In this case, it was someone I had a personal connection to, so the message was done as a favour, which was more meaningful.
Ask me to source gifts for children and I’m at my happiest, probably because I have two of my own.
One recent challenge was to find a collectable painting of a bunny by artist Hunt Slonem – a favourite of the Kardashians – for a teenage girl’s bedroom. I was given a budget of £50,000 but got one for £27,000 from a private art dealer.
As for me, if a friend or loved one was buying me a present today, I would be thrilled to open a delicate diamond bracelet, or a beautiful rose for my garden.
However, nothing could beat a bunch of wild flowers picked for me by my children or a picture they’ve painted themselves. After all, the best gifts are priceless.
As told to SADIE NICHOLAS
